“In [Christ] and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.” Eph. 3:12 (NIV) This is a simple but enormous promise for us. Since Christ has paid all our debts we can always approach God without any restrictions. This reminds me of the annual entrance into the holy of holies conducted by the Jewish high priest each year. Only one person could enter, only once a year, only in the Temple, and only the high priest. But now all of us can enter, any time we want, anywhere we want, and we don’t have to be a top religious leader.
Better yet, we can be confident that God will welcome us and bring good to us. The Jews did not have this confidence under the old covenant. There is an unverified tradition that the high priest had a rope tied around his ankle when he entered the holy of holies. If he died because his sins were not atoned for then a priest outside the holy of holies could pull the body out instead of going into the holy of holies and risking death himself. But we have confidence that we can come to God without risks. We can “make our requests known” to him, be with him, and trust him with our life issues. We can keep an attitude of freedom and confidence in our hearts whenever we approach him. Insert your name in place of the “we” and repeat it a few times to absorb this truth!
